Weekend Papers Summary
NEW YORK TIMES
-The Pentagon’s public apology and admission of having made a “tragic mistake” in killing an Afghan aid worker and seven children from his extended family in a drone strike was broadcast Saturday on Afghan television.
-The souped-up, remote-controlled machine gun that Israel used to kill Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsn Fakhrizadeh, now joins the combat drone in the arsenal of high-tech weapons for remote targeted killing. But unlike a drone, the robotic machine gun draws no attention in the sky, where a drone could be shot down, and can be situated anywhere, qualities likely to reshape the worlds of security and espionage.
-An FDA panel recommended against blanket access to Pfizer boosters for those 16 and older, but urged offering them to those 65 and older and “at high risk,” a term that offers the White House some room to expand access.
-The United States and Australia went to extraordinary lengths to keep Paris in the dark as they secretly negotiated a plan to build nuclear submarines, scuttling France’s largest defense contract and so enraging President Emmanuel Macron that on Friday he ordered the withdrawal of France’s ambassadors to both nations.
-Calling American and Australian behavior “unacceptable between allies and partners,” France announced on Friday that it was recalling its ambassadors to both countries in protest over President Biden’s decision to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. It was the first time in the history of the long alliance between France and the United States, dating back to 1778, that a French ambassador has been recalled to Paris in this way for consultations.-William J. Walker has testified about how his requests for approval to deploy the National Guard on Jan. 6 went unanswered. Now it falls to him, as the new House sergeant-at-arms, to prevent another rampage.
-In 2020, Lani Malmberg co-founded the nonprofit Goatapelli Foundation to train people in how to use goats to prevent wildfires. She said that of the 200 or so participants, only a few had launched their own businesses.
-Robert A. Durst, the enigmatic real estate scion who evaded criminal suspicion for half his life only to become a national sensation after damaging admissions were aired in a 2015 documentary on HBO, was convicted on Friday in the execution-style murder of a close confidante more than 20 years ago.
-Thousands of Haitians who had heard of an easy way into the United States have amassed at the US-Mexico border. In what appeared to be an endless procession across the shallow waters of the Rio Grande, they carried mattresses, fruit, diapers and blankets, provisions to tide them over while they awaited their turn to plead for entry into America.
-Former Algerian president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was forced out of office in 2019, has died. He led Algeria for 20 years, longer than any of his predecessors.
-On a recent visit to Panjshir, NY Times reporters noted that few civilians were about and signs of heavy fighting were scarce. What remained were opposing narratives and claims of massacres, ethnic cleansing and false charges.
FINANCIAL TIMES
-France has recalled its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra for consultations, in a diplomatic protest against a new security pact under which Australia will buy nuclear-powered submarines from the US and cancel its existing contract with Paris.
-Australia has been thrust into the limelight after signing a trilateral defense partnership with the US and the UK that is set to provide its navy with nuclear-propelled submarines.-UK business and energy secretary Kwasi Kwarteng is making emergency calls to some of Britain’s biggest energy groups to stave off a crisis in the sector, as fears grow that record high gas and power prices could send a “tsunami” of suppliers to the wall.
-Thousands of younger Taliban fighters are often at odds with the overtures made by their older counterparts and leaders who have pledged a more moderate regime with amnesty for former opponents and limited rights for women.
-Argentina’s Peronist president Alberto Fernández reshuffled his cabinet on Friday night in a move which increased the power of radical vice-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and paved the way for higher public spending.
-Scientific advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration have voted overwhelmingly against Pfizer’s application to offer a third shot of its Covid-19 vaccine to everyone over 16, dealing a serious blow to the Biden administration’s plans for a widespread booster programme.
-With Congress returning fully to work next week, the Biden presidency is entering a crunch period. The verdict on modern presidents, even those who get re-elected, often hinges around legislative achievements in their first 18 months. For all the noise and recriminations over the summer around the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and the spread of the Delta variant, the next few weeks of negotiations over the president’s spending plans are a defining moment.
-Munich police have investigated an €80,000 payment from a bank account in Dubai to the landlord of Jan Marsalek’s fiancée in Munich, which could prove a rare link to the fugitive former Wirecard executive.
-Ashtead, the British group best known for supplying diggers, generators and lighting to construction sites, is plotting a breakthrough in the Hollywood film business.
-Authorities in New Jersey and Texas are pursuing actions against cryptocurrency group Celsius Network for allegedly offering unregistered securities, as regulators crack down on issuers of digital asset lending products.
-The heightened political tensions in Haiti come as the Caribbean nation of 11m people struggles with the aftermath of a severe earthquake last month, worsening poverty, a failing economy and widespread gang violence. Instead of tackling these challenges or solving Moïse’s murder, business people have said the government was consumed by a vicious power struggle.
-The US military said a drone strike it launched in Afghanistan on August 29 killed 10 civilians, including up to seven children, reversing its initial claim that it had hit an “imminent Isis-K threat” to Kabul airport.
NEW YORK POST
-Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Friday shared more images from inside its Crew Dragon capsule that’s already brought its four civilian passengers around the Earth more than 15 times, according to the mission, dubbed “Inspiration4.”
-Astrophysicists at the University of Leeds in the UK have discovered an abundance of life-giving organic molecules in space, previously thought to occur only under rare cosmic circumstances.
-AT&T Inc’s HBO Max streaming service has halved its subscription fees in a limited-period offer to lure back millions of subscribers it lost after dropping out of Amazon.com Inc’s Prime video channels.
-The Teamsters Union has launched campaigns to organize employees in at least nine Canadian facilities of Amazon, according to Reuters interviews with union officials.